A Fish Called Omul

The day after we returned from Olkhon Island, we boarded a bus bound for the small village of Listvyanka on the western shore of Lake Baikal. This time it was only an hour ride. We got off right where the harbor is, but since it's low season all of the boats were docked.

Because we had our heavy bags with us, we decided to find the home stay first. It was supposed to be near a fairly well-known cafe, or so we thought. We asked one man where the street was, and he sent us in the wrong direction. Then we asked someone else and they didn't know the name of the street or the cafe near the home stay. Then we asked a lady in a market and she said it was far far away (ugh). Then we asked a girl working at a cafe, and she pointed at herself and said, “Irkutsk.” Which meant that she had no idea where anything in town was. Then we asked at the main hotel in the town and she said it was just down the street (no it wasn't). She also had no idea where the cafe was. Finally, we found someone who knew exactly where the cafe near the hostel was, but didn't know exactly where the street was, and she said keep walking for 15 minutes. So after about an hour of wandering the one main street that lines the shore, we found Olga's Baikal Guesthouse (see review).

We were treated to a nice hot cup of tea, relaxed for a little, and headed out to actually explore. Listvyanka is mainly one long main road that goes along the lake, with smaller roads that head up into the mountains. All the houses are traditional wood buildings with beautiful carvings along the window sills and door frames. The weather was windy and cold, so it was a little dreary. The lake comes right up to the town, so the view is incredible. It seems like a tourist town during the summer, but in October most stalls and information centers are closed.

The dark one is actually Russian vodka. It tastes like whisky. The clear one tastes like what Americans think of as vodka. Not nearly as good.

First, we did what anyone visiting Russia should do; we ate some caviar and drank some vodka! It was fantastic. Then we walked along the road some more and discovered Omul, the traditional smoked fish that Baikal is known for. We bought a small fish, went to a cafe, bought a beer and some fried rice, and chowed down. The lady who we bought the fish from at first showed us a very large, arm-length fish. We said, no no small fish, and pointed to one in her smoker. She looked at us and said, “Ok 2!” “No, just one.” “One? Two people!” “Yes, just one.” “...ok.” We discovered later that we should have taken two, because the fish was delicious.

That is the little smoked fish that left us wanting more.

We shopped around the souvenir stalls, bought some nice things. Richard even found a wedding ring for himself. Then we headed to a cafe for dinner. After some good old meat dumplings, we went back to the guesthouse for the night.

Lake Baikal jade.

The next morning, we were treated to a fantastic breakfast and got on a bus back to Irkutsk.

Land O'Lake

Olkhon Island is the largest island on Lake Baikal. It is home to approximately 1500 people. To get to the island, you can take a ferry whenever the lake isn't frozen, you can drive on the ice when the lake is frozen over, and when the ice starts to melt in early spring, you can only reach the island by plane. It is a 5 hour drive from Irkutsk.

Most of the hostels and home stays are in the largest village, Khushir. From Khushir, you can book tours or rent bikes. We chose to just walk around the first afternoon and rent bikes the second day. Our third day we took a bus back to Irkutsk.

Emily fell just short of getting to the top (insert height joke here).

The island is beautiful, as you can see in our photos, and we could imagine spending an entire summer there in the future. The bike ride was fun, even though Emily got quite tired. We were going to try to bike to a small lake that is mineral rich, and will turn your skin red if you stay in too long. We discovered very quickly however, that the lake was behind two sets of hills. The first set went up about 1000 meters, and the second we never really got to. The first hill got steep enough for Emily to give up on the ride and just walk the bike up (she claims it was faster to walk the bike than to ride it, although she couldn't go much slower haha). The view was amazing, but we decided that it would be better to just continue up the road rather than attempt the second hill.

Beautiful view less than 15 minutes from our home stay.

The priest at the church played those bells for a few minutes. He also speaks pretty much fluent French and English. The next picture is the sunset from the very same church. We found out the stay is free as long as you do some labor.

We went to a cove that had what appeared to be a man-made sandbar that would create a small lake during low-tide. We took a break there and drank some of the lake water. That's something we discovered about Lake Baikal on the bus ride to Olkhon Island; you can drink the water. The lake takes up an area greater than all five Great Lakes combined, and someone told us that it is around 1000 meters deep. That's nearly 4000 feet. It's also longer than the country of Austria. And to top it off, the lake gets so cold in the winter it freezes over enough for someone to drive on.

Steamed Omul (it may not look pretty, but it is delicious), and Emily drinking from Lake Baikal.

After the bike ride, we went back to Olga's for dinner. A fter dinner, we got to do a Russian banya, which is basically a dry sauna followed by a cold bath. It was the perfect end to our first Lake Baikal excursion.